Poker is a game in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot. The pot is awarded to the player or players with the best combination of cards, or to the player who makes an uncalled bet. The most popular types of games can be classified as: draw games (e.g., five-card draw), stud games (e.g., seven-card stud), and community card games (e.g., Texas Hold'em). Despite its many variants, most poker games follow the same basic pattern of play. The right to deal each hand rotates among the players and is marked by a plastic disk called the “dealer button.” The dealer button is rotated clockwise among the players to indicate who the dealer is and to determine the due order of betting.
For each hand played, one or more players may be required to make forced bets that create an initial stake for which the players will contest. These forced bets are called “blinds” and “antes.” Specifically, the player immediately to the left of the dealer posts a “small blind,” and the player to the left of the small blind posts a “big blind.” The amount of the big blind is equal to the minimum bet for that round, and it is often twice the amount of the small blind. In addition, when antes are in effect, every player at the table is forced to make a minimum bet. These forced bets may be increased during different stages of the game so as to induce players to enter pots as the game progresses.
In order to keep track of which players are expected to post blinds when hands are dealt, additional buttons may be used. Hence, in a typical poker game, the dealer button indicates which player is dealing, a “big blind button” shows which player is posting the big blind, and a “small blind button” indicates which player is posting the small blind. After the cards are dealt, the player to the left of the big blind is the first to act in that round. Further, each stage of the game may have several rounds. Thus, for the game to advance to its next stage, one of the players typically keeps track of time and announces forced bet increases at predetermined time intervals.
Poker is a difficult game to manage. First, it is very difficult for players, particularly novice players, to remember what the blind amounts are when it is their turn to be in a blind position. Moreover, it is also difficult to properly time or clock different stages within the game so that binds and/or antes increase in a consistent and fair manner. In addition to human error, it is common for time keepers to use that information to his or her advantage by announcing increases when it is most convenient to him or her. These problems become even more evident in the case of multi-table tournaments, where two or more groups of players gather around two or more tables and play separate decks of cards, while one person attempts to coordinate the tournament by synchronizing game stages and blind increases across the various tables.